Mar 7, 2011

It's hard to find a nanny who loved our kids as sincere as we (parents) do, right? So when you've found one, you will try your best to keep the nanny with you and please her with everything she wants. By doing so, you hope your kid will be happy and in a good care of a loving and professional nanny. And at the same time, the nanny feels comfortable to work in your house and willing to stay for a long time.

But, watch out, mommies! Your kids could become so attached to the nanny and slowly forget to learn about how to be an independent person according to her/his age. Let me tell you a story about a nanny of my daughter's classmate in playgroup.

This little girl (usually called Taya) is 3 years old. The regulation in the school is parents must leave their kids study in the class room alone. Parents can wait for their children in a special room together with other parents. But no adult people is allowed inside the class room except for the teacher/s. If your kid is new, you can accompany her/him for the first three days only, after that you must leave the class room and wait with other parents in the waiting room. Most of the kids usually cry and upset when watching their parents leaving them inside, but it's only happened for a few days. They will soon understand that parents aren't allowed to accompany them inside the classroom and they will accept it and happily meet their parents back outside the classroom, after the class is over.

But this little girl, Taya, has been accompanied by her nanny for almost 5 months inside the class room. Her nanny makes an excuse that Taya will be very upset if she leaves her alone in the classroom. But regulation is still regulation. The teacher finally insisted that the nanny must wait outside the class just like other parents did. When this happened, Taya screamed and cried so loudly, but her teacher managed to persuade her after 10 minutes. She has been told that her nanny is waiting outside, no one is going to leave her alone. She stopped crying but still refuse to study. Her teacher keeps persuades her and at least she's willing to stay inside the classroom without her nanny. Next time she'll get better.

But outside the classroom, silly thing happens. The nanny's crying. She said she can't be separated from Taya (even for only about 2 hours!?) and the teacher shouldn't have forced her to do so. The nanny told us that Taya is so attached to her 24 hours a day. Even when she needs to go to the bathroom, Taya will drag her chair and wait for her exactly in front of the bathroom's door which must be left opened. Can you imagine how stupid that situation is?? Maybe the nanny told us the story in order to gain our sympathy and showing us how close and important she is to Taya. But, instead of looking at her with a smile and understanding, we look amazed and frowned. What kind of nurture is that?

The nanny failed to teach Taya about independence. I wonder what's going to happen to this little girl if suddenly her nanny can not work and accompany her anymore. In this Taya case, I don't think that the little girl has a problem about left alone in the classroom, but the nanny is actually the person who refused to let it happens. She's so proud that she can make her employer's kid so attached to her that she doesn't care about the bad impact that Taya will face in the future. I'm sure the situation will be harder for Taya when she moves to a higher step such as Kindergarten and Primary School. When all her friends can adapt just well in the new school, Taya will still struggle with the condition that she must be separated from her nanny everyday.

So, if you mommies hire a nanny to nurture your kids everyday, make sure you pay attention to this side of the story. I'm sure you want your kids to grow as independent persons who can adapt well and face everything in front of them on their own in the future. Nanny is good to help them with food, hygiene, doing homework, etc. But nanny won't stay forever, someday she will leave. And tell your kids, that they must deal with it someday. But life must go on and they still need to learn and grow bigger, even with or without the nanny beside them. That's the point. Don't let your kids so attached to them. And tell the nanny to teach your kids about Independence before she managed to make your kid so attached to her.